Lots of the ex-military aviators are assigned a call sign, or nickname, while going through pilot training. I'm not sure if these tags get pinned on everyone or if it's just the fighter jocks that get them, but it seems to be quite an important rite of passage. From what I've been told, some guys try to pick their own name and lobby heavily to get the coolest name they can come up with. But those guys rarely get what they want. Sometimes, the moniker is a variation on their name: A pilot named Joe Twiss might be called "Twister." Of course, the name might also come from a screw-up, or it could simply be some kind of derogatory statement. "Wrapper," for example, might be assigned to a guy who leaves his candy wrappers in the cockpit. Some of the names pilots get are cool, like "Ice Man." If someone really wanted "Ice Man," but ended up with "Pickle," I'm sure he'd just as soon be called by his real name. I mean, I would.
展开▼
